Thailand saves the day – this time with a robot. A team of Thai students won the Championship at World RoboCup Rescue 2024 in the Netherlands for designing a robot that can rescue disaster victims, an indicator of the Kingdom’s promising future in robotics and technology.

The victory is not a new phenomenon. Students from the King Mongkut University of Technology, North Bangkok (KMUTNB) have won the competition ten times before. Nonetheless, it is no mean feat.

Twenty teams from 10 countries participated in the 2024 RoboCup held in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, from July 16-21. The Thai team’s iRAP robot beat them all handily with a score of 1,076 points, more than 150 points ahead of Japan with 921 points and Germany with 825.

iRAP stands for the Invigorating Robot Activity Project, and KMUTNB is the premier science and technology university in the Kingdom.

“Our robot performed better than others in the competition. It can recognize things and approach a target on its own. We have brought our university and robotics club into a new realm,” a university representative told local papers.

The team won two additional awards for extraordinary performance, including the Best-in-Class Mobility and the Best-in-Class Dexterity categories.

The iRAP rescue robot resembles a miniature tank with a long robotic arm. It has lights, cameras, mapping abilities, and sensors to help identify victims and record body temperature. It contains software that allows emergency workers to operate it from a distance.

“The competition leads us to eagerly research the ways to rescue humans when the world needs it,” the team wrote in its description of the robot. Participating in previous RoboCup events helped them improve their work. “After the competition, the team knew how to make the better robots,” they wrote.

Source: Royal Thai Embassy, Washington D.C.